ON  A  PROPER  EDUCATION 

FOR  AN  AGRICULTURAL  PEOPLE, 
wj  Sa:auGl  Not t^  Jr « 

Deliversvi.,  American  Institute  of 
Instruction...  Boston,  August, 1835.! 


SS3I 


A    PROPER    EDUCATION 


AN     AGRICULTURAL    PEOPLE 


BY     SAMUEL     NOTT,     Jr. 


DELIVERED     BEFORE 


THE  AMERICAN  INSTITUTE  OF  INSTRUCTION. 


AT  ITS  ANNUAL  MEETING. 


BOSTON,  AUGUST,  18S5. 


/> 


m- 


S53i 


BOSTON    COLLEGE    LiSRARt 
SNESTNUT  HILL.  MASS. 


275210 


EDUCATION  FOR  AN  AGRICULTURAL  PEOPLE. 


Though  I  am  to  regard  the  agricultural  population,  I 
must  of  course  involve  the  principles  on  which  all  classes 
are  to  be  educated.  For  the  points  at  which  all  men  unite 
are  far  more  numerous  than  those  at  which  particular 
classes  of  men  are  divided.  I  shall  not  allow  myself  to 
forget  my  appropriate  subject,  and  shall  as  specially  as 
possible  confine  myself  to  it;  but  I  shall  do  my  work  very 
badly,  if  with  all  its  speciality,  its  great  principle  shall  not 
be  found  applicable  to  people  of  every  class. 

There  is  another  light  in  which  my  limit  seems  no  limit 
■ — in  which  I  may  consider  myself  as  speaking  for  the 
people  at  large.  In  all  countries,  and  especially  our  own, 
the  agricultural  people  is  the  people.  Magnify  as  we  may 
each  other  interest,  —  commercial,  manufacturing,  —  they 
form  but  small  fractions  of  the  mass  —  themselves  proceed- 
ing from,  and  intimately  bound  to,  the  agricultural  popula- 
tion, and  receiving  their  character  from  it.  Increase  our 
manufactures  and  commerce  as  we  must,  they  can  never 
employ  a  tythe  of  the  community.  Our  increasing  millions 
must  be  chiefly  agricultural,  forming  the  nation,  and  gov- 
erning the  nation.  Yes  —  governing  the  nation.  In  all 
countries,  and  especially  our  own,  weight  is  in  numbers. 
The  agricultural  population  do  and  will,  directly  or  indi- 
rectly, govern  the  country.  The  farmers  will  regulate  or 
distract  manufactures  or  commerce — will  secure  or  disturb 
our  civil  polity.  If  they  originate  no  governmental  acts, 
when  they  do  but  act  or  decHne  acting  upon  propositions 
of  good  or  evil,  their  decisions  form  the  issue  of  every 
proposal.     If  the  breath,  whether  of  patriotism  or  faction, 


4  MR  NOTT'S  LECTURE. 

whether  of  wisdom  or  folly,  proceeds  from  some  other 
region,  it  blows  in  vain  until  it  moves  the  level  surface  of 
society.  On  its  agitation  or  quiet  must  depend  the  result. 
Whatever  good  or  ill  are  now  prevalent  among  us,  the 
agriculturists  have  welcomed  ;  whatever  have  been  missed, 
they  have  rejected.  Whatever  is  to  be  feared  or  hoped 
for  awaits  their  decision.  In  proportion,  therefore,  as  we 
discover  the  just  principles  of  education  for  an  agricultural 
people,  do  we  provide  for  the  welfare  of  the  whole. 

I  feel  myself,  then,  entrusted  with  the  solemn,  I  may  say 
sublime,  duty  of  attempting  to  point  out  a  proper  educa- 
tion for  this  great  and  growing  people.  Would  that  I 
might  be  enabled  to  do  it  in  such  a  manner  as  might  prove 
a  seed  of  blessing  for  ages  which  are  yet  to  come. 

We  must  keep  in  view  that  the  question  before  us 
regards  the  agricultural  people  as  a  body,  and  of  course 
that  it  is  not  answered  by  any  direction  which  goes  to 
elevate  some  portion  of  that  body,  whether  to  commercial, 
civil  or  literary  pursuits.  That  is  the  proper  education  < 
which  shall  be  of  the  greatest  benefit  to  the  mass  who  must 
remain  in  the  lot  of  their  inheritance.  Such  an  education, 
no  doubt,  will  give  sufficient  scope  for  all  changes  needful 
to  the  well-being  of  individuals  and  society  at  large  ;  but 
our  design  is  to  provide  for  the  mass  —  to  exhibit  the  proper 
education  for  those  who  remain  upon  the  soil. 

Nor  is  the  inquiry  answered  by  a  direction  for  any  par- 
ticular period  of  life.  Our  inquiry  must  not  be  confined 
to  the  mere  matter  of  early  education,  certainly  not  of 
school  education — an  education  which  a  Legislature  can 
institute,  and  which  schools  can  execute  ;  but  we  must 
speak  of  an  education  which  must  be  received  and  cher- 
ished by  the  people  themselves  in  all  the  stages  of  their 
lives.  No  community  can  be  properly  educated,  where 
education  is  not  carried  forward  and  matured  in  the  suc- 
ceeding periods  of  life,  where  education  in  later  does  not 
lead  an  education  in  earlier  life,  where  in  school  and  after 
school  it  is  not  self-cherished  and  self-matured. 

We  cannot  suggest  an  effectual  plan  for  mere  early 
education.  We  must  provide  for  the  education  of  all  ages, 
in  order  to  secure  the  proper  education  of  the  young. 
Our  design  is  to  promote  education  on  those  broad  princi- 
ples which   will  secure  it  in  childhood,  and  give  it  fair 


EDUCATION  FOR  AN  AGRICULTURAL  PEOPLE.  5 

proportion  and  growth  and  endurance  in  after  life  j  to  ed- 
ucate according  to  the  terms  of  our  subject,  not  merely 
the  children  of  the  people,  but  the  people  themselves.  I 
shall  consider  a  proper  education  for  an  agricultural  people 
to  be  such  as  is  suited  to  their  opportunities,  their  condition, 
and  their  duties. 

I.  A  proper  education  for  an  agricultural  people  is  one 
for  which  they  have  an  opportunity.  It  is  such  as  they  can 
get.  It  is  practicable  in  their  lot.  Of  course  we  preclude 
immediately  all  that  education^ — be  it  what  it  may  —  which 
requires  childhood,  or  youth,  or  manhood  to  be  wholly  or 
chiefly  occupied  in  receiving  instruction  ;  and  we  admit 
only  what  can  be  obtained  in  the  midst  of  bodily  labor, 
commencing  with  the  early  years  of  childhood,  and  abiding 
until  old  age,  under  the  fulfilment  of  the  doom  from  which 
our  free  institutions  cannot  release  us  —  "in  the  sweat  of 
thy  brow  thou  shalt  eat  bread." 

Having  assumed  this  principle,  it  remains  to  unfold,  as 
far  as  may  be,  the  opportunities  of  an  agricultural  people. 
Of  all  professions  whose  duty  is  bodily  labor,  none  affords 
a  better,  probably  none  affords  so  good,  an  opportunity  for 
both  early  and  later  instruction  —  an  opportunity  which  we 
may  hope  every  attempt  to  unfold  may  make  to  be  better 
improved. 

So  far  as  formal  arrangement  is  concerned,  the  common 
school  system,  where  it  exists  in  full  operation,  is  adapted 
to  the  people  —  is  their  proper  social  opportunity.  A 
school  occupying  ten  or  eleven  months  in  the  year  —  the 
one  half  of  the  time  under  a  female  teacher  —  and  designed 
principally  for  children  and  the  young,  to  aid  the  labors  of 
their  parents  in  the  house  and  field  —  the  other  under  a 
male  teacher,  and  designed  with  the  young  especially  to 
afford  an  opportunity,  during  the  season  of  agricultural 
leisure,  to  the  elder  youth,  seems  to  me  in  its  arrangement 
according  to  the  employment  of  the  people,  and  in  its  giv- 
ing the  combined  advantages  to  the  using  all  of  male  and 
female  influence,  to  be  the  true  system. 

I  conceive  that  the  subject  assigned  me  grows  out  of  a 
defect  of  education  perceived  in  the  system  as  it  exists  ; 
and  the  remedy  proposed  must  be  in  the  instituting  of  a 
better  system,  or  in  some  suggestions  for  the  better  working 
of  that  acknowledged  to  be  inevitable  to  the  employment! 


6  MR  NOTTS  LECTURE. 

We  prefer  the  latter ;  and  we  claim  of  course  of  families, 
of  the  primary  schools,  of  the  winter  schools,  of  society, 
such  an  education,  according  to  their  opportunities,  as  will 
grow  and  flourish  though  the  schools  be  interrupted,  and 
when  at  length  the  grown  up  youth  are  fully  engaged  in 
their  laborious  calling.  Specific  rules,  good  in  specific 
cases  only,  cannot  prove  a  leaven  for  the  whole  mass.  I 
shall  therefore  only  give  the  following  general  directions : 

1.  It  must  be,  with  reference  to  what  is  expected  from 
schools,  parental.  Whatever  may  be  true  as  to  that  unnat- 
ural education,  which,  whether  from  necessity  in  the  lower 
orders  of  towns,  or  from  choice  in  the  wealthy,  gives  chil- 
dren's whole  education  to  teachers,  there  is  no  agricultural 
opportunity  which  can  supply  parental  lack  —  none  which 
teaches  the  three  or  four  first  years  on  which  all  depends, 
or  supplies  the  inevitable  intervals  of  schools  in  later  years. 
However  difficult  to  secure  it,  the  lecturer  on  the  proper 
mode  must  demand  (whatever  of  the  school  house)  cer- 
tainly of  the  families  of  every  district,  that  the  teacher  of 
that  primary  school  begin  and  cherish  the  education  for 
which  they  look  to  the  school  house.  Such  is  God's 
appointment  for  all  —  and  above  all  to  an  agricultural 
people.  Our  great  mistake  has  been  to  overrate  the  com- 
mon school  system.  A  universal  admiration  of  it  has  par- 
alysed the  parental  arm,  without  whose  aid  no  proper 
education  can  be  given. 

2.  It  must  regard  subjects  of  present  interest  and  use. 
The  opportunity  lies  greatly  in  this,  whether  of  learning  or 
teaching :  the  boy  has  no  need  to  lack  a  teacher,  and  the 
teacher  will  have  no  uninterested  scholar,  when  the  subject, 
for  instance,  is  the  bee-hive,  or  the  poultry-yard,  or  the 
fish-pond,  or  the  spared  bird's  nest,  or  the  coming  or  gone 
by  menagerie.  The  children  will  not  be  unobserving, 
whose  capacity  of  observer  is  so  cherished  —  will  not  hate 
reading,  whose  reading  is  diverted  to  matters  of  so  deep 
and  present  an  interest.  New  occasions  will  be  constantly 
occurring  which  shall  promote  observation  and  reading, 
and  of  course  a  knowing  and  growing  mind. 

Nothing,  perhaps,  would  promote  observation  and 
thought,  more  than  the  early  habit  of  keeping  a  journal  of 
some  agricultural  department.  I  have  known  children 
deeply  interested  and  greatly  aided  by  so  simple  a  labor  as 


EDUCATION  FOR  AN  AGRICULTURAL  PEOPLE.  7 

a  journal  of  the  poultry-yard,  or  the  garden,  or  the  corn- 
field. 

3.  As  far  as  education  is  prospective,  it  should  regard 
their  future  line  of  life,  as  laboring  agriculturists. 

I  mean  not  to  hinder  free  scope  to  peculiar  disposition 
or  opportunity  for  other  employments,  but  regard  the 
certainty  that  the  great  mass  7)iust,  and  of  consequence  that 
each  individual  will  prohably,  follow,  and  most  advanta- 
geously follow  the  calling  of  his  birth.  This  being  the 
true  view  of  the  case,  the  opportunity  corresponds  to  the 
motive  and  the  end,  and  by  that  correspondence  is  increased. 
The  range  of  education  in  this  view  embraces  all  that  is 
needful  in  agricultural  life,  and  all  that  can  prepare  one  to 
know  or  devise  the  best  methods  of  doing  it  —  a  subject, 
plainly,  which  can  only  be  begun  in  childhood  or  youth, 
and  the  value  of  which  must  be  manifest  more  and  more 
every  step  of  advancement.  It  is  scarcely  possible  that 
preparing  for  practical  purposes  or  duties  that  can  never 
be  finished,  that  agricultural  families  should  be  much  other 
than  studious  —  that  they  should  do  otherwise  than  fill  up 
their  intervals  of  labor  with  profitable  study.  The  ordinary 
dulness  proceeds  from  prospective  studies  for  no  definite 
and  manifest  purpose,  which  have  no  proper  bearing  upon 
their  preparation  for  these  employments.  An  agricultural 
class  book  —  far  better  than  a  political  class  book  —  is,  I 
believe,  yet  a  desideratum  in  our  schools.  No  book  could 
be  more  interesting,  or  would  be  more  sure  to  be  the  man- 
ual of  after  life,  even  though  its  possessor  should  become 
the  prisoner  at  last  of  the  crowded  city. 

An  education  upon  subjects  of  present  interest  and  use, 
and  for  future  use  in  their  line  of  life,  would  not  only  be 
more  sure  both  of  teachers  and  scholars,  but  would  be 
more  likely  to  be  such  as  could  be  used.  Alas !  what  a 
calamity  has  often  occurred  to  the  well-educated  son  and 
daughter  of  the  farmer,  if,  indeed,  without  regard  to  present 
or  future  use,  the  forms  of  education  may  have  been  given 
them.  From  dear  bought  opportunities,  and  with  far 
fetched  knowledge,  they  return  with  an  education  fit  only 
to  be  given  to  the  winds,  not  to  grow  and  thrive  amidst 
the  demands  of  their  callino-. 

4.  The  pursuits  of  the  family  and  district  must  corres- 
pond with  the  pursuits  of  the  school. 


8 


MR  NOTT'S  LECTURE. 


Ifj  as  we  have  said,  rural  education  must  be  in  a  great 
degree  parental,  because  the  school  opportunity  has  neces- 
sary interruptions,  then  must  parents  and  elder  brothers 
and  sisters  keep  their  own  knowledge  fresh  and  growing, 
that  they  may  be  quahfied  to  render  household  aid.  Again, 
if  a  district  would  have  prevail  a  spirit  of  improvement 
among  the  young,  notwithstanding  the  hindrances  peculiar 
to  their  lot,  they  will  not  fail  in  their  desire,  if  such  be  the 
spirit  of  the  neighborhood.  Without  this  spirit,  and  the 
habits  to  which  it  will  give  rise,  not  much  can  be  hoped 
for  by  any  plans  for  the  improvement  of  the  people.  With 
them,  what  may  we  not  hope  for,  when  we  reflect  upon 
the  facilities  which  remain  amidst  the  toils  of  agricultural 
life.  ^ 

In  the  first  place,  on  the  supposition  of  both  a  compe- 
tence and  a  spirit  of  improvement,  what  an  opportunity 
have  parents,  sweetening  their  own  toil,  to  cherish  various 
knowledge  and  just  principles  in  their  children.  To  an 
uncommon  extent,  their  children  labor  with  them,  and  iri 
circumstances  which  favor  conversation.  The  religious 
direction  given  to  an  agricultural  people  illustrates  the 
opportunity  for  the  salutary  intercourse  on  all  subjects 
which  belong  to  their  line  of  life,  and  directs  how  any  defi- 
ciency of  education  at  the  schools  may  be  remedied  by  the 
incidental  conversation  at  home  :  "  Thou  shalt  speak  of 
them  to  thy  children  when  thou  art  sitting  in  the  house, 
and  when  thou  art  walking  by  the  way ;  when  thou  art 
lying  down,  and  when  thou  art  rising  up." 

Again,  what  opportunity  is  furnished,  both  to  parents 
and  their  children,  of  useful  reading.  A  book,  at  once  use- 
ful and  entertaining,  aids  the  midday  rest  —  renders  even 
the  season  of  special  toil  the  season  of  improvement  — 
while  the  winter's  evenings  are  the  farmers'  peculiar  oppor- 
tunity for  gaining  all  wisdom  and  knowledge,  that  they 
may  be  communicated  to  his  children.  No  line  of  life  — 
certainly  of  a  life  of  labor  —  furnishes  so  fine  a  field  for 
training  the  minds  of  the  people,  provided  only  that  with 
schools  the  best  that  can  be  procured,  the  district  pursuits 
correspond. 

If  one  phrase  be  given  as  the  guide  to  our  present 
requirement,  it  would  be  —  that  in  order  to  a  proper  agri- 
cultural education,  the  district  must  have  habits  of  reading. 


EDUCATION  FOR  AN  AGRICULTURAL  PEOPLE.  9 

I  take  it  for  granted  that  a  library  exists,  embracing  the 
best  writers  in  history,  politics,  morals  and  religion,  and  in 
the  sciences  peculiarly  connected  with  agriculture  ;  that  all 
pursue  to  some  extent  those  subjects  which  are  of  common 
interest,  and  that  everyone  gives  free  scope  to  his  own 
peculiar  taste,  and  becomes  able  to  contribute  his  share  to 
the  information  of  the  neighborhood.  Poetry  especially, 
derivmg  its  beauty  from  the  scenes  of  nature,  and  its  value 
trom  the  deep  philosophy  which  it  thus  adorns,  cannot  fail 
to  mterest  and  improve  such  a  neighborhood.  Taste  is 
indigenous  in  the  country  ;  it  can,  it  does  spring  up  in  the 
farm-house;  often,  but  not  always,  — yet  so  often  as  to 
show  how  fitted  are  the  works  of  our  highest  poets  to  rural 
Me,  —  producing  a  refinement  of  thought  and  feeling  be- 
yond what  IS  always  seen  in  the  elite  of  city  life. 

Ihe   habit  of  reading  newspapers  will  not  answer  the 

""wh'^'iK  "'^"^i"  '^^  '"  ^"  ^'''^y  Pe'-'o^  «f  my  life- 
T  .1??  r^  '^^i^  newspaper,  I  don't  know  anything." 
In  that  medley  reading,  he  who  has  not  yet  learned  to  select 
and  reject  almost  intuitively,  who  has  not  learned  the  happy 

klwiS''^'""'^^^'^'^'  f  remembering,  will  either  gain  no 
knowledge  or  such  confused  and  indistinct  impressions,  as 
edupItPHM  'S"°'-^"^^-m"st  be  more  and  more  ill 
tli  f.  '  I  r^'^  y^"  '^^^^  ^"^  t^^  l°"§er  he  lives.  On 
the  other  hand,  in  the  reading  of  continuous  works,  each 

ab'din'rjn^";^'^  '^"^"^  °^^^^  P^^  --e  distinct  and 
S  Pfl£;-  i^\^''°^'"^  "^^^^"^'^  become  the  subject 

IZlrT^U  7^  ir'  T''  "^  ^•^^«™'  ^"^  the  meani  of 
S  Ih  ^""^'^  r  ^^'  ne^  acquisitions  and  new  reflec- 
tions. The  mmd  thus  trained  will  even  gather  much  from 
^e  newspaper  itself,  no  longer  the  minifter  of  ^onfu  Z 
but  aiding  a  well  regulated  mind.  c^ouiusion, 

I   have  already  suggested,  as  a  help  to  early  education 

belZ"1o  thif  "r/  ^'  ''''''■  ^^^''"'^"-1  depaiSiTn": 

the  tiiUllnf  T'^V'r  '■'•^"'•"^  ''  ^'^"  «^  t^^  heads  of 

Hct    nt  nn.2?     Vi        "^^^  ^^''  't  ^^  ^^^  custom  of  the  dis- 

encourLemLrto  fT  °^"  ^'"^^^  ^"^  ''  ^"  ^--P'^  and 

cuh?vate°T  h  K.    r    ^°""^'      '^^'^   ^^^^   alone   would 

L^e^s^bLa tnlS 

ishino- every  ficntvfi.f''^'''"'  ^"^  ^°"'^'  ^^ile  nour- 
ment^in  ^hV  ^'  "'""''  ^onstant-materials  for  improve- 
ment in  the  occupauons  of  rural  life.     If  a  high  exarnpL 


10  MR  NOTTS  LECTURE. 

be  needed  to  give  weight  to  this  recommendation,  we  have 
it  in  our  beloved  Washington,  the  first  of  American  farm- 
ers. His  agricultural  journals  occupy  volumes,  and  no 
doubt  he  was  indebted  to  his  studious  care  ot  his  domain, 
for  that  matured  wisdom  which  fitted  him  at  length  to 
guide  the  afl^airs  of  the  nation. 

The  utter  worthlessness  of  the  school-house  to  the  pur- 
poses of  a  proper  education,  when  unaided  by  the  family 
and  neighborhood,  is  manifest  in  a  thousand  school  districts, 
which  nevertheless  value  highly,  nay,overvalue  the  common 
school  system  ;  and  who  take  all  possible  pains,  at  least  so 
they  think,  to  secure  a  good  school  for  their  children.  Yet 
do  they  give  their  own  testimony  against  themselves,  ever 
complaining,  and  that  most  justly,  that  there  is  no  worse 
place  to  bring  up  a  family  in  than  this  same  district  ;  be- 
cause, good  as  is  the  school-master,  and  good  as  is  the 
school  system,  and  good  even  as  is  our  blessed  America  ; 
the  school-master  and  the  school-system  and  the  school- 
providing  country  cannot  do  that  part  of  education  which 
belongs  to  the  family  and  the  neighborhood.  Find  the 
district  where  the  pursuits  of  the  school  are  not  exempli- 
fied in  the  home  and  neighborhood,  where  study  is  un- 
known, where  history  is  too  dull,  and  Milton  and  Thomson 
and  Cowper  are  uninteresting ;  —  where  Addison  and 
Johnson  and  all  English  Classics  have  given  place  to  the 
people's  newspapers,  and  the  children's  story  books,  and 
you  shall  find  the  district  where  a  proper  education  cannot 
be  given. 

I  venture  the  prophecy  that  there  will  never  be  a  good 
school  or  good  education  in  such  a  district,  come  from  what 
named  school  the  teacher  may.  The  plants  cannot  be 
well  cultivated  and  thriving  which  lie  drenched  in  such  a 
stagnant  pool.  It  is  beyond  my  power  to  propose  any 
place  which  shall  give  a  proper  education  at  the  school,  if 
such  education  is  not  fostered  by  correspondent  pursuits  at 
home,  and  in  the  district.  I  cannot  lay  down  a  proper 
end  for  an  idler's  district  ! 

5.  I  am  not  transgressing  my  limit,  and  certainly  not 
departing  from  my  character  as  a  country  minister,  when  I 
refer  to  the  sabbath,  as  the  opportunity  especially  of  our 
agricultural  population.  If  the  sabbath  was  made  for 
man,  it  seems  the  peculiar  boon  of  the  husbandman.     The 


EDUCATION  FOR  AN  AGRICULTURAL  PEOPLE.        11 

command  for  its  observance  presents  the  scene  of  a  rural 
sabbath,  in  which,  the  husbandman,  and  his  son  and  his 
daughter  and  his  man-servant  and  his  maid-servant,  and 
even  the  cattle  which  aid  their  toils  are  at  rest.  Then  from 
the  nature  of  man,  thought,  reflection,  meditation,  either 
on  the  good  or  on  the  evil  are  spontaneous — the  mind 
expands  when  the  pressure  of  care  and  labor  are  taken  off. 
Then  there  is  leisure  for  reading,  to  aid  and  direct  the  ex- 
panding mind.  Then  too,  there  is  leisure  and  opportunity 
for  social  intercourse,  when  from  the  scattered  farm-houses 
there  meet  an  assembled  multitude  with  kind  greetings  and 
conversation,  and  for  worship  and  instruction ;  for  lectures 
on  the  most  ancient  of  all  books,  an  encyclopedia  of  pop- 
ular knowledge,  of  history,  prudence,  moral  and  religious. 
The  demand  is  plain,  for  such  an  education  will  enable  an 
agricultural  population  to  avail  themselves  of  this  divine 
arrangement,  I  will  not  say  now,  for  securing  their  relig- 
ious interests,  but  for  perfecting  education,  for  perfecting 
the  work  of  the  family  and  the  school-house,  for  gaining 
those  habits  of  quiet  thought,  and  considerate  reading,  of 
attention  and  intelligent  hearing,  of  reflection,  and  of  com- 
munication, for  which  such  an  opportunity  is  provided. 
If  I  may  assume  that  public  worship,  including  at  once  the 
offices  of  devotion  and  instruction  hold  the  prime  place  in 
the  sabbath  opportunity,  then  is  it  obvious  to  claim  those 
growing  studies  which  can  alone  prepare  a  people  to  re- 
ceive with  advantage  the  proper  communications  of  the 
pulpit,  those  rich  and  extended  and  various  communica- 
tions, of  which  the  scriptures  themselves  are  the  speci- 
men and  the  guide.  Often,  often  is  this  christian  ministry 
stiaitened  in  following  even  the  simplicity  of  scripture  ;  its 
easy  course  of  history  and  natural  science  and  divine  {)hi- 
losophy,  —  because  the  narrow  minded  public  seems  pre- 
pared for  little  more  than  the  common  place  of  a  technical 
theology,  or  is  prepared  to  condemn  as  unscriptural  the 
discourses  which  follow  the  large  and  free  views  of  the 
scriptures  themselves.  Happy  wherever  there  may  be 
found  those  "  noble "  hearers  who  search  the  scriptures 
daily  for  the  further  apprehension  of  those  various  truths 
which,  imitating  the  sacred  volume,  it  is  the  will  of  the 
ministry  to  unfold. 

I  will  not  fail  to  take  the  natural  reflection  which  here 


12  3IR  NOTT'S  LECTURE. 

comes  back  upon  my  own  profession,  the  educators,  as 
truly  as  the  religious  instructors  of  society.  For  so  has 
God  ordered  it,  that  those  whom  he  has  appointed  for  man's 
spiritual  and  eternal  benefit,  have,  more  than  any  other 
profession,  the  opportunity  of  cultivating  the  mental  facul- 
ties, of  furnishing  the  growing  mind  and  directing  it  to  the 
best  methods  and  to  the  most  ample  stores  of  improvement. 
Here,  as  in  all  directions,  is  the  scriptural  assurance  true, 
that  godliness  is  profitable  for  the  life  that  now  is  as  well 
as  of  that  which  is  to  come.  The  ministers  of  religion 
have  never  been  backward  in  the  direct  care  of  rural  edu- 
cation. What  we  here  regard  is  the  indirect  service  to  be 
rendered,  by  the  example  of  a  love  of  improvement,  of 
studious  habits  ;  by  their  repeated  applications  to  the  pub- 
lic mind  in  their  proper  calling.  What  range  of  instruc- 
tion is  afforded  within  the  all-pervading  principles  of  our 
faith  !  What  opportunity  we  have  of  exciting  inquiry,  of 
awakening  thought  of  opening  new  sources  of  improve- 
ment to  every  person,  of  giving  a  direction  to  conversation 
and  reading. 

The  influence  of  the  christian  ministry  in  promoting  a 
good  rural  education,  is  aided  greatly  no  doubt  by  the 
social  intercourse  and  example  of  a  minister  and  his  family, 
when  such  a  family  is  itself  a  specimen  of  the  mutual  im- 
provement of  parents  and  their  children  together,  them- 
selves too,  aided  by  and  aiding  the  neighborhood  in 
which  Providence  has  cast  their  lot.  Happy  when  the 
clergyman's  family  are  nobody  of  the  country  town,  nor  on 
the  other  hand  hunters  for  good  society  out  of  their  usual 
range  ;  but  without  refusing  or  disregarding  the  advantages 
of  a  wider  intercourse,  are  still  lovers  of  their  country 
and  find  their  best  friends  and  dearest  associates  in  the 
♦well  improved  companions  of  their  rural  walks.  These 
aids  to  the  education  of  the  people,  by  the  rural  clergy, 
are  no  doubt  hindered  now  by  their  present  uncertain  resi- 
dence and  frequent  removals,  and  can  only  be  rendered  to 
the  best  advantage,  when  though  change  be  allowed  as  the 
exception,  permanence  is  adopted  as  the  rule — when  the 
common  understanding  is,  that  his  charge  is  the  minister's 
abiding  home. 

Let  it  not  be  thought  that  we  limit  our  claim  upon  rural 
clergy,   to  their  own  parish    boundaries.     Let   us  rather 


EDUCATION  FOR  AN  AGRICULTURAL  PEOPLE.        1$ 

assign  to  them  also  the  high  office  of  aiding  or  checking 
that  metropohtan  influence  which  for  better  or  worse,  is 
ever  tending  to  expand  itself  over  the  community  —  the 
office  shall  we  say,  of  senators  to  accept  or  reject  the  legis- 
lation, readily  and  eagerly  proffisred  from  the  proper  cen- 
tres of  action  and  energies  :  —  not  by  their  own  vote  but 
by  exemplifying,  and  promoting  through  the  land  a  wise, 
sane  and  independent  mind.  Then  only  can  this  office  be 
well  performed,  when  there  shall  be  found  scattered  in  our 
quiet  country  parishes,  not  only  men  diligent  in  their 
loved  duties,  but  many  made  more  conspicuous  by  their 
wisdom,  knowledge  and  faithful  devotion  to  the  public 
good,  than  they  could  be  made  by  the  most  elevated  sta- 
tions —  men  capable  of  influencing  not  merely  their  own 
locality,  but  the  generation  in  whici  they  live  and  the  gen- 
erations which  are  to  follow. 

But  we  obtain  some  further  light  by  considering  a  proper 
education  as  befitting  the  condition  of  an  agricultural  peo- 
ple. It  should  be  fitted  to  make  them  most  comfortable, 
contented  and  happy  in  their  line  and  lot  of  life, 

I  speak  of  the  rural  community  as  a  body,  and  as  such 
to  remain  in  the  lot  of  their  inheritance  as  laborers  on  the 
soil.  It  is  to  be  expected  of  course  in  that  free  state 
of  society  where  agriculture  has  profitable  intercourse  with 
all  other  interests,  that  peculiar  inclination,  or  talents,  or 
circumstances,  will,  whether  raising  or  depressing  them, 
bring  many  from  agricultural  into  manufacturing,  commer- 
cial or  professional  life.  It  is  right,  that  all  professions 
should  be  connected  with  the  root  and  foundation  of  society, 
and  that  the  heights  of  society  should  be  ascended  from  the 
farm-house.  Our  inquiry  regards  not  these  special  cases ; 
but  the  unexcepted  mass  of  the  people.  No  education  can 
be  more  improper  than  that  which  keeps  the  eye  ever  open 
upon  other  employments,  which  lures  the  imagination  ever 
with  the  advantages  of  other  erriployments,  which  sets 
other  employments  in  contrast  as  to  advantages  and  enjoy- 
ments, with  the  actual  employment  to  which  the  life  is 
allotted  ;  and  that  is,  on  the  other  hand,  a  proper  education 
which  makes  men  most  comfortable,  contented  and  happy 
in  their  actual  lot.  On  this  principle  we  have  the  follow- 
ing directions.  A  proper  education  for  an  agricultural 
people  proceeds,  on  motives  belonging  to  their  lot  in  life, 
and  aims  at  purposes  attainable  in  that  lot. 


14  MR  NOTT'S  LECTURE. 

It  is  plain  to  every  person  at  all  familiar  with  the  state 
of  agricultural  society  that  there  has  been  and  is,  a  strong 
action  of  motives  without  their  peculiar  lot ;  an  extensive 
feeling  among  the  youth,  that  there  were  other  employ- 
ments far  more  desirable  }  that  agricultural  life  yielded  less 
rewards,  and  was  beset  with  severer  toil,  and  difficulties, 
and  was  less  honorable,  more  degrading  than  other  profes- 
sions ;  that  it  was  a  profession  to  be  endured,  not  to  be 
chosen.  Hence,  the  grumbling  about  the  hard  lot  of  work- 
ing men  found  its  way  down  to  the  farm-house,  the  pecu- 
liar seat  of  contentment.  Hence,  frequent  changes  of 
employment,  without  due  cause,  among  those  whose  oppor- 
tunity of  thrift  was  in  the  calling  of  their  fathers.  Hence, 
the  foolish  efforts  at  gentility,  and  at  genteel  employments, 
which  spoiled  the  minds  and  injured  the  prospects  in  life 
of  the  young  families  of  the  wealthier  sort  of  farmers.  No 
motives  can  be  worse,  than  those  which  cherish  unattaina- 
ble desires,  false  hopes,  vain  attempts  to  change  employ- 
ment and  even  discontent  and  envy  —  and  which  leaves 
each  rising  race  uneasy  and  dissatisfied  in  the  profession  of 
their  fathers  ;  each  new  race  of  fathers  striking  daily  the 
note  of  complaint  at  the  hardness  of  their  lot. 

Perhaps  of  these  motives  without  their  lot,  the  chief  has 
been  that  which  has  been  so  often  repeated,  the  opportunity 
of  advancement  to  the  highest  stations  or  the  greatest 
wealth,  afforded  by  our  republican  institutions.  The  con- 
stancy of  its  repetition  implies  that  it  has  some  effect,  and 
if  it  have,  must  it  not  aid  the  tendency  to  prefer  some 
other  lot,  and  dissatisfaction  with  one's  own,  and  the  neg- 
lect or  misemploytnent  of  the  means  of  happiness  which 
belong  to  the  general  condition  of  our  rural  population  or 
to  each  individual,  peculiar  opportunity.  The  possibility 
of  becoming  a  Franklin,  a  Sherman,  or  a  Gray,  is  no 
available  motive  with  the  mass  of  the  people,  except  in 
the  way  of  displacing  motives  indigenous  to  their  lot ; 
except  by  substituting  airy  castles  in  place  of  the  solid  and 
certain  advantages  of  agricultural  life.  What  those  solid 
advantages  are,  those  motives  indigenous  to  the  condition, 
will  not  fail  to  appear,  while  we  attempt  to  describe  such 
an  education  as  shall  best  secure  comfort,  contentment  and 
happiness  in  agricultural  life. 

Of  course  the  first  direction  is,  that  education  should  be 


EDUCATION  FOR  AN  AGRICULTURAL  PEOPLE.       1 5 

such  as  to  guide  and  aid  labor  to  the  best  account ;  such 
as  at  once  to  make  agriculture  more  easy  and  more  pro- 
ductive. I  am  sure  that  the  general  impression  of  society 
on  this  subject,  as  well  as  almost  universal  practice  is  very 
defective.  Agriculture  needs  and  admits  an  appropriate 
education,  which  may  be  gained  without  teachers  and 
schools  ;  but  is  more  likely  to  be  begun  and  afterwards 
well  pursued  in  proportion  as  it  should  be  aided  by  teachers 
and  schools.  Let  the  rudiments  of  agriculture  be  taught  ; 
let  the  proper  books  for  gaining  further  knowledge  be 
pointed  out.  Let  the  connexions  of  mechanical  and  chem- 
ical philosophy  with  the  labors  of  the  field  be  understood. 
Let  the  prejudice  against  "  book  learning  "  ba  discarded, 
and  our  rural  population  would  rise  rapidly  to  better 
method,  and  to  a  more  comfortable  state  of  life  ;  while  a 
proper  study  of  their  own  profession,  would  greatly  im- 
prove their  faculties  and  make  them  more  and  more  capa- 
ble of  all  other  knowledge. 

Knowledge  is  power;  and  the  education  of  an  agricul- 
tural population  should  be  such  as  to  increase  power  by 
knowledge.  How  knowledge  is  power  in  agricultural 
affairs  is  everywhere  manifest  in  the  uses  of  the  lever  for 
saving  and  multiplying  manual  strength.  No  limit  can  be 
set  of  course  to  the  power  which  education  may  confer, 
which  education  may  add  to  agricultural  life,  beyond  which 
it  cannot  multiply  its  comforts  or  diminish  its  labors.  If 
the  faithful  application  of  science  has  introduced  a  hundred 
fold  comforts  to  the  farm-house  by  the  machinery  of  the 
manufactory,  may  not  a  more  extended  and  practical  know- 
ledge of  what  is  adapted  to  their  own  employment,  in  like 
manner  augment  their  direct  comforts,  and  increase  the 
means  of  procuring  comforts  from  without. 

It  were  not  to  be  despised,  if  an  education  adapted  to 
the  condition  of  agricultural  life,  did  but  give  with  the 
same  wealth  more  health,  leisure  and  information.  The 
most  serious  disadvantages  of  agricultural  life  certainly  are 
its  own  work,  especially  perhaps  to  the  mothers  of  young 
families,  and  to  youth  at  the  period  of  their  most  rapid 
growth  —  its  absorbing  of  leisure,  and  its  hindrance  from 
both  causes  to  acquiring  information  —  for  such  disadvan- 
tages in  practice,  needlessly  or  not,  it  certainly  has.  If 
possible,  and  we  believe  it  possible,  because  we  have  seen 


16  MR  NOTT'S  LECTURE. 

examples  of  the  fact,  let  education  be  such  as  shall  prepare 
farmers  for  the  labors  of  the  field,  that  they  may  know 
how  to  accomplish  the  labors  of  each  season  in  its  time 
without  the  hazard  of  a  broken  constitution  and  to  bring 
on  their  sons  to  the  labors  of  the  field  without  breaking 
their  spirits  or  their  health  ;  and  to  give  to  wives  all  need- 
ful aid,  in  that,  most  difficult  and  important  period  of  life, 
when  a  young  family  is  raised. 

But  a  proper  education  regards  more  than  securing 
wealth  and  health  and  life  and  limb,  than  the  mere  supply  of 
the  animal  necessities,  even  the  making  life  as  agreeable  as 
possible.  That  is  not  deserving  the  name  of  education 
which  provides  only  for  a  livelihood,  a  boon  secured  by 
mere  instinct  to  the  meanest  animal.  Education  of  man 
must  provide  for  the  well-being  of  man  —  for  the  refined 
enjoyments  of  the  man,  for  the  higher  senses  of  the  body, 
and  for  all  the  faculties  of  the  mind.  This  is  true  not  only 
of  the  higher  classes  —  against  which  if  we  had  them  by 
hereditary  descent,  I  have  nothing  to  say  ;  but  it  is  true  of 
the  working  classes.  The  working  man  is  not  educated 
properly  as  a  working  man  —  unless  he  is  trained  to  the 
enjoyments  of  a  man. 

I  need  not  dwell  at  large  upon  what  is  perfectly  obvious, 
the  pleasures  which  an  improved  and  improving  mind  will 
find  in  reading  and  conversation  and  in  those  reflect  oiis 
which  belong  only  to  improved  and  in)proving  minds. 
They  are  but  savages  themselves  who  claim  that  savage  is 
as  happy  as  civilized  life,  and  that  the  well  informed  and 
studious  are  no  happier  than  the  boor  in  his  chosen  igno- 
rance. The  happiness  of  improved  and  improving  minds 
is  within  the  reach  of  the  agricultural  population,  and  that 
is  not  a  proper  education  for  them  which  does  not  furnish 
them  this  happiness.  Reading,  reflection,  conversation, 
such  as  belong  to  improved  and  improving  minds,  are  the 
peculiar  boon  of  the  country.  The  absence  of  variety,  of 
objects  to  stimulate  curiosity,  leave  the  mind  free  to  read 
the  works  of  the  wise  and  good  of  all  nations  and  of  all 
times,  given  as  they  are  to  the  farmer  in  his  own  mother 
tongue — his  accustomed  solitude  and  quiet  give  scope 
to  his  own  reflections  upon  this  growing  knowledge. 
While  his  opportunities  of  conversation  in  his  family  and 
neighborhood  are  just  frequent  enough,  to  make  it  ever 


EDUCATION  FOR  AN  AGRICULTURAL  PEOPLE.  17 

agreeable.  Not  to  dwell  upon  the  pleasures  of  reading 
and  thought  — how  are  those  pleasures  diffused  and  multi- 
plied by  conversation  in  the  family  and  neighborhood. 
The  family  needs  not  ingress  or  egress  for  its  amusement 
or  delight,  for  it  lives,  farmer-like,  "  within  itself,"  and  so 
much  the  better,  as  a  youthful  race  grows  up  into  the  en- 
joyments of  their  parents.  And  the  neighborhood  is  not 
dull  for  want  of  good  society,  as  some  exiled  citizens  may 
think  ;  but  glows  daily  with  the  pleasures  of  sensible  and 
refined  conversations  — such  as  often  is  not  in  the  saloons 
of  wealth  and  fashion,  and  often  is,  in  the  calm  country 
retreat,  in  the  farm  houses  and  groves  and  fields  and  lanes 
of  our  rural  districts. 

But  when  I  speak  of  an  education,  to  make  rural  life  as 
agreeable  as  possible,  while  I  require  suitable  reading,  re- 
flection, conversation,  I  am  desirous  to  insist  on  one  par- 
ticular, more  likely  to  be  left  out  of  view  ;  I  mean  that 
agricultural  education  should  prepare  the  people  for  their 
own  peculiar  enjoyments,  to  take  delight  in  rural  life,  and 
especially  in  their  own  rural  home. 

As  to  the  general  delight  in  rural  life,  it  can  hardly  fail 
to  follow,  from  that  study  of  agriculture  for  other  purposes 
which  we  have  already  commended.  I  am  not  afraid  to 
say,  that  there  is  no  employment  of  man  so  likely  to  grow 
in  one's  affections,  as  he  endeavors  to  learn  to  carry  it  on 
to  the  best  advantage,  as  agriculture.  Other  employments 
are  regarded  more  for  their  profits;  but  this  from  step  to 
step,  as  one  tries  to  improve  it,  more  and  more  interests 
and  delights  the  mind,  while  its  results  are  ever  furnishing 
the  finest  pictures  to  the  eye. 

But  T  am  yet  more  desirous  to  see  cherished  a  special 
fondness  to  one's  home,  for  the  enduring  scene,  its  rocks 
and  rivers  and  hills  and  vales,  its  orchards  and  groves,  as 
they  were  to  the  eye  of  childhood  and  as  they  will  remain 
to  the  eye  of  old  age,  and  for  that  new  and  improving 
scenery  with  which  industry  and  taste  will  adorn  the  cot- 
tager's acre,  and  the  wealthy  land-holder's  domain.  To 
regard  fields  and  forests  and  hills  and  valleys  and  rocks 
and  rills  and  rivers  ;  to  be  capable  of  investing  the  home 
of  labor  or  of  wealth  with  new  and  changing  beauties,  to 
delight  in  gardening,  husbandry  and  tree  planting,  to  love 
with  a  cherished  fondness  the  ancient  and  growing  beau- 
3 


18  MR  NOTT'S  LECTURE. 

ties  of  a  home  ;  to  acquire  the  capacity  of  leaving  it  with 
reluctance  even  at  the  call  of  necessity  and  duty,  and  the 
consequent  power  of  making  another  home,  the  source  of 
similar  enjoyment.  These,  though  missed  sadly  in  all  our 
rural  districts,  are  most  important  objects  of  rural  educa- 
tion. If  our  rural  society  must  roll  on  unceasing  to  the 
wilderness,  it  were  well  if  every  wave  might  bear  the  love 
of  an  early  home,  and  a  desire  to  renew,  though  at  the 
farthest  west,  that  early  home;  if  distant  emigrants  might 
find  and  bequeath  to  posterity  a  country  and  a  home.  I 
cannot  conceive  the  man  to  be  a  man,  a  whole  man,  in 
whom  the  love  of  nature  about  his  birth  place  has  not 
awoke,  and  is  not  cherished  —  cherished  by  himself,  and 
whom  it  does  not  lead  forth  to  beautify  and  adorn  the  spot, 
which  though  it  were  but  for  a  year  he  calls  his  home ; 
and  which  if  our  tossing  sea  has  sickened  will  not  revive 
again  and  live  in  some  beloved  home.  Let  the  love  of 
nature  and  of  home  and  of  country  revive  everywhere,  and 
bless  our  eastern  lands,  and  establish  families  and  commu- 
nities in  beloved  homes  even  to  the  farthest  west.  Thus, 
shall  our  country  assume  in  the  progress  of  its  rural  civili- 
zation the  outward  form  of  Paradise,  which  can  never  be 
given  to  the  brick  and  mortar  of  the  city  ;  thus  become  the 
quiet  garden  of  a  peaceful  and  virtuous  population. 

The  proper  education,  in  this  particular,  may  be  greatly 
aided  by  a  right  course,  in  those  farmers  who  rise  to  con- 
siderable v^ealth.  Nothing  is  more  silly  —  nothing,  in  truth, 
more  vulgar  —  than  the  attempts  we  sometimes  see  in  such 
cases,  to  lay  aside  country  vulgarity.  Nothing  is  more 
ridiculous  than  the  ill-taste  of  the  family  of  a  wealthy  farmer, 
when  the  parents  are  mainly  occupied  in  showing  off  their 
flock  of  young  apes  ;  whose  whole  influence  in  their  rural 
neighborhood,  is  conveyed  in  the  silly  apery  of  city  fashions 
and  city  manners.  On  the  other  hand,  farmers  whom  provi- 
dence has  blest  with  wealth,  need  not  be  restricted  to  the 
narrow  expenditures  of  their  poorer  neighbors ;  but  may 
expend  in  good  taste,  and  for  good  purposes,  in  a  manner 
which  shall  at  once  benefit  the  circumstances  of  the  com- 
munity, and  be  a  safe  and  proper  example  for  imitation  by 
the  poorest  of  their  neighbors,  according  to  each  one's  de- 
gree. The  expenditure  of  thousands  in  the  increase  of  real 
comforts  and  conveniences,  and  in  an  extended  hospitality, 


EDUCATION  FOR  AN  AGRICULTURAL  PEOPLE.         19 

in  the  increase  of  books,  maps,  and  all  materials  for  the 
improvement  of  a  family  and  the  neighborhood;  the  im- 
provement of  lands  and  grounds,  in  view  of  permanent 
profit  and  enduring  beauty,  vi^ould  be  an  example  which, 
in  their  degree,  all  might  imitate.  Such  example  was  ren- 
dered, on  the  highest  scale,  by  the  father  of  his  country- — 
the  plainest  of  all  farmers  —  in  the  wise,  useful  and  tasteful 
expenditure  of  a  princely  establishment.  His  fondness  for 
agriculture,  his  love  of  rural  life  and  of  home,  would  have 
made  him  the  more  humble  copy  of  his  own  high  example, 
had  his  been  the  lot  of  a  working  farmer.  "  The  more  I 
am  acquainted  with  agricultural  affairs,"  said  that  true 
farmer,  "the  more  am  I  pleased  with  them  ;  insomuch,  that 
I  can  nowhere  find  so  great  satisfaction  as  in  those  innocent 
and  useful  pursuits.  In  indulging  these  feelings,  I  am  led 
to  reflect  how  much  more  delightful  to  the  undebauched 
mind,  is  the  task  of  making  improvement  on  the  earth,  than 
all  the  vain  glory  which  can  be  acquired  from  ravaging  it 
by  the  most  uninterrupted  career  of  conquest."  With  such 
a  spirit,  he  could  have  found  a  delightful  home,  had  his 
been  the  lot  of  a  working  farmer.  Around  his  more  hum- 
ble dwelling,  and  with  the  labor  of  his  own  hands,  he  would 
have  made  a  humble  copy  of  the  taste  and  beauty  of  Mount 
Vernon. 

I  cannot  forbear  here  the  expression  of  the  wish  that  we 
may  have  increase  among  us  of  the  class  of  gentlemen 
farmers;  by  which  I  mean  only  farmers  whose  wealth  pre- 
vents the  necessity  of  their  daily  labor,  but  who  prove  them- 
selves, like  our  noble  Washington,  to  be  gentlemen  by  the 
excellence  of  their  principles  and  pursuits.  The  concen- 
tration of  wealth  about  our  cities,  and  the  constant  breaking 
up  of  wealthy  country  famihes,  and  their  final  exile  from 
their  homes  and  from  rural  life,  deprives  our  wide  country 
of  the  advantage  which  would  be  afforded  by  ancient  and 
venerable  establishments  ;  conspicuous  examples  of  all  that 
is  excellent  in  husbandry,  and  of  all  that  is  valuable  in  in- 
tellect and  morals ;  touching  the  surrounding  population 
with  an  influence  less  despotic,  less  presumptuous,  and 
more  propitious  than  is  now  too  often  exercised  by  the 
passing  citizen,  or  the  aristocratic  gentry  of  the  store,  or 
the  factory,  or  the  professions. 


20  MR  NOTT  S  LECTURE. 

III.  The  proper  education  of  an  agricultutal  population, 
must  regard  their  appropriate  duties  —  must  he  such  as  will 
enable  them  to  do  the  duties  of  their  lot. 

Whatever  limitation  to  the  mere  knowledge  of  their 
trade  might  seem  worthy  on  flther  grounds  to  be  allowed, 
would  be  removed  by  the  consideration  that  the  agricultural 
population  is  entrusted,  like  all  other  portions  of  society, 
with  domestic  education  —  the  education  of  the  rising  race; 
and  from  their  numbers,  of  course,  with  the  education  of 
the  mass  of  the  people.  If  the  agricultural  community  is 
ill-educated,  then  are  the  people  ill-educated.  Incompe- 
tence and  neglect  here,  weakens  and  diseases  the  living 
body  of  society.  In  view,  then,  of  a  duty  common  to  every 
class  and  to  every  family  —  but  more  important  in  the  mass 
than  in  any  fragments  of  society  —  what  is  the  proper  edu- 
cation of  an  agricultural  people? 

In  answering  this  question,  briefly,  as  we  must,  we  say 
that  a  business  committed  to  all  classes,  and  for  the  most 
part  to  those  who  are  literally  to  eat  bread  in  the  sweat  of 
their  brow,  does  not  demand  what  the  author  of  their  alloi- 
ment  has  denied  —  viz.  the  leisure  universally  allowed  to 
the  learned  professions,  or  which  wealth  bestows  ;  nor  any 
learning  for  which  such  leisure  is  indispensable.  Yet  must 
we  claim,  since  it  is  committed  to  beings  capable  of  increas- 
ing knowledge  and  skill,  that  every  parent,  even  down  to 
the  lowliest  cottager,  is  bound  to -labor  for  growing  know- 
ledge and  skill,  and  from  step  to  step  to  take  the  utmost 
pains  to  know  and  do  his  duty  well.  Hence  we  must  re- 
quire that  all  parents  should  have  —  and  if  they  have  not, 
be  studiously  and  earnestly  acquiring  —  such  knowledge  as 
will  enable  them  to  further  the  education  of  their  children 
on  the  scale  of  their  instruction  in  the  rural  schools  ;  and 
that  every  attempt  to  elevate  the  standard  of  common  edu- 
cation, be  understood  and  welcomed  as  a  demand  for  a 
corresponding  elevation  of  parental  education ;  and  that 
every  family  press  forward  modestly,  conscientiously,  dili- 
gently, perseveringly,  not  only  at  every  public  demand, 
but  with  spontaneous  desires  and  efforts. 

It  is  a  part  of  this  demand  that  an  agricultural  popula- 
tion should  acquire  as  extensively  as  possible  those  just 
principles  of  education  which,  easily  attained  by  all  minds, 
are  not  to  be  separated  from  popular  and    prevailing  error 


EDUCATION  FOR  AN  AGRICULTURAL   PEOPLE.         21 

without  design  and  care ;  that  parents  should  be  ever  at- 
tempting to  increase  their  own  store  of  knowledge,  so  as  to 
be  ever  capable  of  interesting  and  instructing  their  children 
in  all  the  old,  and  in  all  the  new  that  may  arise.  How  im- 
portant, especially  —  not  a  hterary,  not  a  learned,  not  a 
lady-like,  (those  are  not  the  words)  —  but  a  considerate,  a 
reflecting,  a  studious,  a  cultivated,  refined,  and  sensible 
mother;  a  mother  capable  of  winning  and  keeping  the 
confidence  of  her  children ;  of  securing  honor  from  both 
sons  and  daughters  as  they  rise  to  manhood  and  woman- 
hood. Such  a  mother  have  I  seen,  not  unfrequently  in  the 
farmhouse,  herself  bred  in  the  farmhouse,  and  inheriting  the 
cultivation  and  refinement  of  many  generations ;  the  help- 
meet of  a  father,  not  a  stranger  to  out-door  toils  and  cares, 
yet  the  fit  companion  of  a  cultivated  woman  —  her  fit  asso- 
ciate in  training  intellect,  and  taste,  and  religion  in  the 
children,  thriving  like  olive-plants  round  about  their  table. 
Delightful  instances  occur  to  my  mind,  where  the  working 
father  and  mother  have  been  surrounded  with  sons  and 
daughters,  versed  not  only  in  all  common  education,  but  in 
the  histories  and  classics  of  their  native  tongue  ;  where,  not 
distant  from  the  plough  and  the  spinning  wheel,  the  most 
liberal  studies  have  been  pursued,  and  the  most  refined 
conversations  enjoyed  ;  scenes  which  intercourse  with  other 
countries  and  many  cities,  and  with  the  refined  and  intelli- 
gent of  the  highest  classes,  has  not  cast  into  the  shade. 

But  duty  has  a  wider  claim  upon  the  education  of  an 
agricultural  people  —  viz.  that  it  be  such  as  shall  promote 
and  secure  the  best  state  of  society;  thus  giving  promise  of 
blessing  to  future  generations.  We  have  a  conception,  at 
once,  of  what  makes  a  good  state  of  society  in  each  local 
vicinage,  and  which  being  extended  over  all  the  rural  dis- 
tricts, would  concentrate  blessings  upon  the  masses  assem- 
bled for  the  purposes  of  manufactures  and  commerce.  In- 
dividual character  is  formed  upon  high  and  noble  principles, 
if  not  in  every  instance,  yet  so  numerously  as  to  influence 
the  entire  mass.  There  is  the  predominant  influence  of 
worthy  men,  diffusing  through  society  thoughts  of  whatever 
is  lovely  and  of  good  report.  Social  intercourse  is  kindly 
and  cheerful,  and  for  purposes  worthy  the  high  endowments 
of  men  —  is  fitted  for  the  growth,  improvement  and  har- 
mony of  the  moral  and  intellectual  powers. 


2x2  MR  NOTT'S  LECTURE. 

Union  exists  where  union  will  best  promote  the  social 
interests  of  society,  and  retirement,  private  or  domestic,  in 
all  those  things  which  nature  has  willed  to  the  care  of  the 
individual  or  family.  Hence  libraries,  and  hterary  and 
religious  societies,  for  the  support  and  the  use  of  public 
institutions,  that  the  united  cloud  may  drop  as  the  rain  and 
distil  as  the  dew;  and  on  the  other  hand,  the  habits  of 
personal  reading  and  reflection,  and  of  domestic  education, 
by  which  only  pubhc  advantages  are  appropriated  to  the 
people.  Hence  the  condition  of  a  well-informed  and  con- 
siderate and  virtuous  people  —  people  prepared  to  meet  all 
the  emergencies  of  their  lot.  The  promise  of  good  to  such 
a  people  is  met  by  candor  and  good  sense,  and  is  welcomed 
or  rejected  according  to  its  merits.  The  old  is  not  rejected 
as  dross  because  it  is  old,  nor  the  new  welcomed  as  gold 
because  it  is  new.  There  is  nothing  to  discourage  improve- 
ment, for  such  a  people  have  daily  experience  of  its  possi- 
bility and  value.  There  is  nothing  to  encourage  innovation, 
lor  they  will  not  have  forced  upon  them  what  is  contrary  to 
their  intuitive  reason,  to  the  wisdom  of  revelation,  or  the 
lessons  of  human  experience.  The  press,  with  its  power 
of  multiplying  infinitely  any  proposal,  and  the  mail,  by 
carrying  it  to  every  hamlet  and  every  house,  shall  have  the 
opportunity  of  diffusing  life  and  light  to  the  remotest  bodies 
of  society,  but  shall  in  vain  attempt  in  politics,  morals,  or 
religion  to  toss  the  people  like  children  to  and  fro. 

If  a  furnace  heat  accumulate  in  every  metropolis,  and 
throw  abroad  its  sparks  and  coals  over  all  the  land,  they 
shall  fall  among  a  people  whom  they  cannot  set  on  fire  of 
evil,  yet  ready  even  from  the  smallest  spark  to  kindle  and 
glow,  in  every  work  of  glory  to  God,  of  peace  on  earth  and 
good  will  to  man. 

Without  a  proper  education  in  this  respect  —  an  educa- 
tion securing  a  good  state  of  society  —  without  an  education 
to  candor  and  good  sense,  to  kindness  and  good  neighbor- 
hood, to  good  judgment  and  stability  and  virtue,  to  a  power 
of  welcoming  all  improvement,  of  rejecting  all  innovation, 
to  that  control  of  the  passions  which  can  preserve  a  people 
from  becoming  the  victims  of  novelty  or  sympathy — with- 
out these  demands,,  the  press  and  the  mail  may  but  serve  to 
bring  the  caprices  and  sympathies  of  society  into  as  rapid 
movement  as  if  the  mass  of  millions  were  wrought  upon 


EDUCATJON  FOR  AN  AGRICULTURAL  PEOPLE.       23 

within  a  single  village  or  city  ;  may  but  serve  to  scatter 
fire  brands,  and  wrap  the  country  suddenly  in  a  common 
flame,  or  cover  it  with  the  fragments  of  an  universal  explo- 
sion. 

Or  if  society  be  preserved  from  conflagration  or  explosion, 
it  is  easy  to  see  how  an  ill-educated,  an  ill-principled  people 
will  make  curses  of  these  blessings,  will  blight  and  blast 
their  glorious  opportunity.  The  places  of  social  influence, 
the  seats  of  education,  and  the  learned  professions,  how 
would  they  be  filled  by  such  a  people  ?  how  be  filled  by  the 
suffiages  of  ignorance,  and  caprice,  and  passion  ?  How 
by  such  a  people  may  their  lights  be  made  darkness  1 
Boasting  of  improvements,  but  the  victims  of  every  inno- 
vation ;  patients  to  every  quack  ;  clients  to  every  pettifog- 
ger ;  the  disciples  of  every  novice  ;  and  readers  only  of  the 
ravings  of  scandal,  and  caprice,  and  folly  and  malice.  How 
must  such  a  people  become  at  length  unstable  as  water, 
tossed  on  the  waves  of  anarchy  and  fanaticism,  capable  of 
no  other  steadfastness  but  in  the  anchorage  of  despotism. 

Or  if  evils  so  great  as  these  should  be  escaped,  and  society 
should  still  hold  together,  hoWj  except  by  such  an  education 
as  we  claim,  shall  even  a  well  disposed  community  be  ca- 
pable of  conducting  the  affairs  which  in  our  country  devolve 
upon  the  agricultural  mass?  Our  state  legislatures  trans- 
act the  legislation  of  the  country.  The  agricultural  popu- 
lation are  the  law-makers  of  the  land !  How  necessary 
that  they  should  be  educated  at  least  capable  of  forming 
a  wise  judgment  upon  those  high  matters  which  for  good 
and  evil  must  be  submitted  to  them,  so  that  the  voice  of  the 
people  may  never  distract  or  disturb  the  pursuits  of  men, 
may  ever  promote  the  well-being  of  the  people. 

That  good  state  of  society  which  shall  welcome  improve- 
ment and  reject  innovation,  is  partly  provided  for  in  the 
very  condition  of  agricultural  life.  The  farm  house,  the 
rural  neighborhood  and  township,  are  the  least  favorable 
spots  for  agitation.  The  solitary  farm-house,  and  espe- 
cially the  field,  give  the  fire  time  to  go  out,  if  it  has  begun 
to  kindle  from  the  coals  of  some  distant  furnace.  In  a 
word,  the  solitariness  and  toil  of  an  agricultural  life  favor 
the  recovery  of  men  to  their  sober  senses,  if  they  have  been 
at  any  time  disturbed,  and  especially  secure  sound  sense 
and  discretion  to  a  studious,  reflecting  and  virtuous  people. 


24  MR  NOTTS  LECTURE. 

A  well  read  and  studious,  virtuous  yeomanry  is  the  best 
security  which  any  country  can  enjoy  against  the  agitations 
to  which  society  is  exposed.  We  must  complete  what  our 
forefathers  begun.  Our  forefathers  were  readers  of  the 
folios  and  quartos  of  the  seventeenth  century,  students 
at  their  own  fire  sides,  and  under  the  summer  shades  of 
their  own  dwellings,  of  profoundest  writers  on  politics, 
morals  and  religion;  training  up  their  children  around 
them  to  all  that  was  lovely  and  of  good  report.  Such  men" 
were  able  to  found  a  government.  Such  men  would  be 
able  to  preserve  it,  if  they  were  spread  from  the  Atlantic  to 
the  Pacific.  Let  us  not  imagine  that  our  plans  can  confer 
that  power,  because  they  enable  the  agricultural  population 
to  master  the  spelling  book  and  read  the  newspaper.  Not 
until  we  regain  the  domestic  studies  of  our  fathers,  and  their 
virtues  too,  can  we  feel  sure  of  retaining  and  bequeathing 
our  inheritance. 

It  is  impossible  in  ow  country  and  in  our  times  to  dis- 
miss the  demand  of  duty,  without  regarding  other  nations. 
If  duty  requires  us  to  regard  all  people  as  our  brethren, 
and  to  seek  their  best  interests,  then  does  it  require  of  that 
class  of  our  people,  which  form  the  mass,  corresponding 
education.  If  it  be  our  duty  to  bear  our  part  as  people  in 
the  great  work  of  blessing  mankind,  is  it  not  our  duty  to 
require  a  suitable  education,  and  especially  of  the  rural 
population?  The  tree  for  the  healing  of  the  nations  must 
receive  its  chief  nourishment  from  this  soil.  The  world 
demands  and  gives  occasion  for  great  and  growing  improve- 
ments. 

In  the  ^rs^  place,  the  motives  which  are  to  impel  us  can 
be  derived  only  from  the  history  of  all  ages.  If  our  country 
aids  in  the  moral  improvement  of  the  world,  earnestly  and 
perseveringly,  it  will  be  because  it  understands  and  feels 
the  motives  which  humail  experience  has  wrought  out,  in" 
the  progress  of  six  thousand  years.  But  tell  us,  if  you  can, 
how  the  idle  and  the  ignorant,  the  reader  who  reads  not, 
or  who  reading  considers  not,  can  be  governed  by  the 
motives  of  all  history  —  can  be  guided  by  the  lights  of  all 
history  ? 

We  may  be  wiser  than  the  ancients  if  we  will,  and  be  the 
dispensers  of  blessings  which  the  ancients  did  not  give  to 
the  world  ;  but  not   by  the  magic  of  being  born   two  or 


EDUCATION  FOR  AN  AGRICULTURAL  PEOPLE.    26 

three  thousand  years  later,  not  by  some  modern  instinct  of 
wisdom  and  benevolence  ;  but  by  diligence  in  exploring  the 
experience  of  ages  —  by  the  modesty  and  the  trust  in  God, 
for  a  work  which  has  baffled  the  self-sufficient  wisdom  of 
all  nations  and  all  times. 

Under  this  restriction,  I  am  not  disposed  to  check  the  as- 
pirations of  the  American  people  ;  even  when  they  imagine 
themselves  entrusted  with  the  destinies  of  mankind.  True, 
they  are  but  an  example  of  the  ludicrous,  when  they  boast 
of  principles  yet  unimproved  ;  as  if  they  had  undergone  this 
test  of  experiment  ;  but  in  proportion  as  they  are  found 
studying  deeply  the  history  of  man  and  especially  the  word 
of  God,  we  will  bid  speed  to  the  humblest  agriculturist, 
nor  accuse  him  of  folly  and  presumption  when  he  appears 
to  be  a  benefactor  of  the  world.  The  most  retired  farmer 
so  employed,  though  in  the  most  obscure  retreat,  hidden 
in  some  narrow  valley,  is  nobly  occupied,  for  himself,  his 
family,  his  country  and  the  world.  In  that  calm  retreat, 
it  were  well  to  gratify  his  curiosity  and  to  feed  his  mind 
with  knowledge  ;  but  he  is  more  nobly  occupied  —  search- 
ing the  deepest  recesses  of  human  nature,  he  comes  back 
with  the  wisdom  of  all  ages,  and  acting  wisely  and  piously 
in  his  own  proper  sphere,  the  star  light  of  his  wisdom  and 
piety  will  be  shed  forth  to  distant  nations  and  distant  times. 
.  In  closing  this  lecture  I  have  only  to  insist  on  what  has 
been  more  than  once  assumed,  that  the  education  of  an 
agricultural  population  must  be  Christian,  leaving  the  ex- 
planation of  the  term  to  the  scriptures  from  which  it  is 
derived.  Christianity  alone  can  keep  alive  the  interest  in 
a  state  of  society  where  stimulants  are  so  much  lacking,  or 
give  the  right  direction  where  a  deep  interest  is  felt.  I 
shall  not  enlarge  on  this  point;  but  commend  it  to  the 
conscience  and  the  heart  of  this  audience  and  the  Ameri- 
can people,  by  referring  to  the  voice  of  experience,  which 
remarkably  appeals  to  us  from  two  countries  peculiarly  en- 
titled to  a  hearing. 

Frederick  the  Great,  king  of  Prussia,  abetted  with  the 
dignity  and  influence  of  royalty,  the  philosophic  infidelity 
of  Voltaire,  and  under  their  malign  auspices,  both  litera- 
ture and  government,  seemed  to  have  made  a  league  as  for 
the  destruction  of  Christianity,  so  for  its  banishment  from 
all  influence   upon  the  education  of  the  people.     The  ex- 


26  '     MR   NOTTS  LECTURE. 

periment   was  tried   and   as  it  came  on  and   went  fuiward, 
the  release  of  mankind  from  the   ancient  superstitions  was 
heralded  as  the  means  of  renovating  the  world,   and  froni 
the  parent  and  the  school-master,  by  ridicule  or  by  force  the 
Christian  Scriptures  were  wrested,  not  only  in  France,  but 
in  some  proportion  over  all  Europe  and  America.     Our  ag- 
ricultural population,  remote  as  it  might  seem  from  the 
centres  of  infidelity  felt  the  shock,  and  our  rural  districts, 
even  the  most  remote,  whether  for  quiet  or  for  shame  or 
for  indifference  became  less   than   before  the  seats  of  in- 
struction.    I'he  schoolmaster  and  the  parents,  the  agents 
who  alone  reach   the  people,  were  freed  from  the  claim  of 
giving  a  christian  education.     The  effect  of  this  grand  mis- 
take, where  it  was  complete,  was  such  as  to  astound  the 
world ;  can  it  be  that  its  evil  consequences  did  not  extend 
to  all  countries  who  were  in  any  degree  guilty  of  the  error ; 
that  infidelity  in  whatever  degree  has  hindered  and  marred 
the  labor  of  the  schoolmaster  and  the  parent  amidst  our 
ug'^icultural  population  ? 

And  here  it  is  that  the  voice  of  experience  has  come  to 
our  aid,  from  Prussia,  the  distinct  and  loud  claim  of  chris- 
tian instruction,  carried  down  from  the  throne  to  every  rural 
district,  to  the  parent  and  the  schoolmaster.  The  first 
demand  of  the  present  Prussian  system,  is,  on  religion  and 
morality,  established  on  the  positive  truths  of  Christianity. 
Yes,  and  that  the  claims  might  follow  the  tract  of  the 
error,  even  as  it  were  the  claim  of  repentance. 

Another  philosopher  follows  after  the  lapse  of  eightyfive 
years  the  pathway  of  that  remarkable  man,  that  anti- 
christian  philosopher,  who  by  the  invitation  of  Frederick 
and  the  permission  of  his  own  sovereign  went  breathing- 
out  the  prophecy  of  extermination  against  Christianity  in 
all  lands,  and  for  how  different  a  purpose ;  to  behold  in 
Prussia  the  benefit  of  christian  instruction,  and  to  send 
abroad  to  France  and  the  world  the  claim  that  the  parents 
and  the  school-master  must  bless  the  rising  youth  of  all 
countries  by  the  lessons  of  the  christian  faith.  Yes,  let  it 
never  be  forgotten,  the  successor  of  Voltaire,  at  the  court 
of  the  successor  of  Frederick  the  Great,  has  not  come  to 
plot  the  destruction  of  Christianity,  to  sneer  at  its  profes- 
sions, to  rejoice  at  its  parting  downfal ;  but  to  send  home 
the  demand  for  Christian  instruction  in  all  the  rural  districts 


9S\ 


BOSTON   COLLEGE 


3  9031    030  86801    2 


of  France  —  her  IV 
0br  all  people,  sta' 
part  in  her  del' 
divine  Providence  j^ 
attempt,  or  expect  the  i.. 
christian  instruction.  In  a 
the  farmer  and  his  son  and  his  ^  'hter  an 
vant  and  his  maid-servant  and  his  c.  ttle  ar 
every  seventh  day  is  given  especially  to  chris 
thus  governing  all  days  by  its  uniform  and  pe 


d  her   vinedress€ 

nguages  who  rr 

s  accept  the 

^iably,  and  1 

It  of  the  p 

■  agriculti 


